LGBT slang

LGBT slang, LGBT speak or gay slang is a set of slang lexicon used predominantly among LGBT people. It has been used in various languages, including English and Japanese since the early 1900s as a means by which members of the LGBT community can identify themselves and speak in code with brevity and speed to other LGBTs.

Because of sodomy laws and threat of prosecution due to the criminalization of homosexuality, LGBT slang also serves as an argot, a secret language and a way for the LGBT community to communicate with each other publicly without revealing their sexual orientation to others.

Since the advent of queer studies in universities, LGBT slang and argot has become a subject of academic research among linguistic anthropology scholars.

Many terms that originated as gay slang have become part of the popular lexicon. For example, the word drag was popularized by Hubert Selby, Jr. in his book Last Exit to Brooklyn. "Drag" has been traced back by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to the late 19th Century. Conversely, words such as banjee, while well-established in a subset of gay society, have never made the transition to popular use.

Slang is ephemeral. Terms used in one generation may pass out of usage in another. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s the terms "cottage" (UK) and "tearoom" (US) were used to denote public toilets used for sex. By 1999, this terminology had fallen out of use to the point of being greatly unrecognisable by members of the LGBT community at large.

During the first seven decades of the 20th century, a specific form of Polari was developed by gay men and lesbians in urban centres with established LGBT communities.

Although there are differences, modern gay slang has adopted many Polari words, as detailed in the table below:

...
Wikipedia